I was just reading girlgeek's post about the exploding Sanitarium disc, and wondered how awful it would be to lose a game in the same manner.

I've never made a CD backup of my games before, but I'm beginning to think it might be a good idea. I was wondering if many Boomers already put this in practice, and if so, how effective it's been. After all, I believe some of the newer discs are difficult to make copies of because of the copy protection they have built in.

a friend of mine, who happens to be a lawyer, once joked that she bought a CD writer so she could make "personal backups" of her boyfriend's CD selection. she said that legally, the owner of a CD is allowed to make backups for their own personal use. i'd imagine it's the same for a game, but i bet you're right about the copy protection on some disks.

in a similar vein, i cross stitch, and there is a lot of controversy about whether it's legal to make a personal "working" copy of a chart, so when you are stitching from it you can write on it, etc., without worrying about destroying your original copy. the general consensus is that as long as it's for personal use, and you destroy the working copy when you're done, it's perfectly legal. so i'd think it's okay to back up a game, as long as you destroy the backup if you trade or sell the original.

I make back-up copies of all my favorite old games that are no longer available for purchase.

As long as you purchased the original copy..I'm quite sure it is perfectly legal to do this. And even if it isn't, who is ever going to know about it, as long as you do not sell/lend or give your back-up copies to anyone else. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="confused.gif" />

After making my back-up copies, I store my precious old games away in a safe place and only use the copies when I replay the games. Cynch

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"Life is not measured by the number of breathswe take but by the moments that take our breath away."

At one time it was recommended that you make a back-up before using any software. I now make copies of anything that I have on the 5 1/4" floppies, partially because I don't know whether they will eventually become unreadable with age. Once I have a CD-RW at home, I will probably begin to back up the 3 1/2" floppies for the same reason.

I keep the copies in the boxes with the originals and I suppose if I ever traded or sold one of those games I would have to decide whether to include the back-up or destroy it. That would be a shame, it seems to me. Luckily I am not faced with that choice right now as I can't bring myself to get rid of any of my hard sought for "golden oldies".

The practical reality is of course people do make back ups of certain software and keep it for personal use - but it is a violation of the current copyright law. It is a popular myth that there is a "back up copy exception". But of course Cynch made the main point on a practical level..

Not to say that the lawyer friend wasn't in good faith when she said that - but after extensive research of existing copyright decisional law and statutes over the last year - that is the current position on such practices.

I always assumed if you make copies for you own use, and it isn't used in more than one place at a time, then it's okay. In other words, it's not okay to loan the bakup to a friend, while you play from the original one. In the case of music CD's , I have made cassette copys to play in my car. (now I have a CD player in my car, so I don't need to do that any more).

Even if it's technicaly 'not legal', I can't imaging getting in trouble for it as long as you don't distribute it to others, and only keep it for your own use.

As the digital rights management discussion rolls forward, I expect to see some interesting court cases. As it stands, you don't actually buy software. You buy a license to use the code. The diskette or CD or DVD is just a handy container for that code.

The license (End User License Agreement or EULA) routinely absolves the manufacturer of any liability for damage or loss caused by said licensed software.

In effect, the user owns nothing and the manufacturer bears no responsibility whatsoever when it comes to delivering the promised experience. The end user is bound by a contract -- and subject to prosecution for copyright violation -- while the manufacturer is bound by nothing other than the requirement that there be something on the diskette/CD/DVD and certainly not subject to prosecution for the failure of whatever might be on the diskette/CD/DVD to work properly.

If manufacturers are so concerned about people making backups, there is a simple solution: Every software box should ship with two copies of the software in it AND manufacturers should be required to replace any damaged or defective disks at no cost whatsoever to the user. If a manufacturer wants the power to take away the ability of the user to make copies, the manufacturer should be willing to pay for that power by taking up the responsibility of seeing to it that users lose nothing by losing the ability to make copies. That is, the manufacturer should be willing to provide as many copies as needed.

Currently, the situation is ridiculously lopsided. Be interesting to see how long it will persist.

video recorders should (legally) only be used to 'time shift' programs - to be watched once, as broadcast, and then destroyed

the belief that you can make a 'backup' of a CD as long as it is for personal use only is based on an old agreement (not a law, just an agreement not to prosecute) between media companies & the enforcement agencies, that it was reasonable to backup magnetic media (i.e. floppies & tapes) because of the limited life span of those media. Given the much, much greater expected lifespan of CDs and DVDs, there is no such agreement in place.

Sorry.If you want to extend the life of your CDs... use the full install option for your game, and a NO-CD patch (which may be illegal to produce, but are not illegal to use), so that you don't keep using the disk.Ta-ra,The Gremlin.

As far as I'm concerned, a EULA that you can't read until you've purchased the game is void. The first time you see the EULA is at the beginning of your install - not before you buy the game. And many shops won't accept returns of opened software.

Some game EULA's do allow you to make one personal backup of the game. EULA's aren't all the same if you actually read them. But how many people take the time to read them when they are eager to finish installing their new game and try it out?

It is easier to make CDR copies of older DOS games than it is to make copies of newer games. Before CDR drives were available, no one was able to copy CD's and there was no need for copy protection.

But not all CDRW's are capable of copying the newer forms of copy protection. The best combination of software and hardware for copying ALL CD's, both new and old, is a combination of CloneCD and one of the CDRW drives recommended on the CloneCD site.

Notice that not all the CDRW's they list are equal. They are just the ones that have been tested. The best CDRW's are the ones with 2 disks in the "Correct EMF-Encoding" column which can do "RAW-DAO 96 = 2352 bytes RAW Data + 96 Bytes P-W Subchannel Data." To copy the latest games, you need this sort of thing. To copy older games, you wouldn't.

To play your game (if it has one of the recent versions of copy protection) you may need to have a CloneCD icon in your taskbar with "Hide CDR Media" checked in it in order for your drive to read it. I have a friend who lives in Canada who told me about this. She told me that when she tried to play her "backed up" game with her LG CDROM, she had to use the icon. But when she got a new drive, she didn't need the icon to play it any more. My friend tested the Canadian version of Syberia and another game - I think it was Beyond Atlantis.

One of the settings in Clone CD is to "amplify weak sectors" (AWS). I got the impression (from what my friend told me) that this setting could overcome the deficiencies in some CDRW writers. If your computer's region settings were set to "USA," AWS is disabled by default. But if they were set to "Canada" (and probably some other countries), you could take advantage of the AWS option and copy some CD's you probably otherwise couldn't with a less-capable CDRW drive.

CloneCD has a trial version, but it expires after a while. Since I only rarely back up anything, and when I do it's an old DOS game, I didn't think it was worth the price (about $40). It might be for someone else.

Look at how many people tape TV programs or movies on TV to watch over and over. What is the law on that I wonder.

IANAL.

Universal and Disney (oh, look, Disney again, what a surprise) sued Sony in 1984 to stop them from selling Betamax machines because it allowed people to make copies of copyrighted movies and television shows for personal use.

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of Sony, saying that "it was fair use for consumers to copy programs off the air for time-shifting purposes," and more generally that "private, noncommercial copying should be presumed fair use."

Since there is no appeal from the U.S. Supreme Court, that about wraps it up for the "one-copy only" business model.

But let's examine the legalities a little closer:

Title 17 of the U.S. Code, Chapter 1, Section 107:

"Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work,

...

is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:"

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

A backup copy passes here. Backups are noncommercial, unless copyright law entitles the rights holder to another sale every time a disc is scratched.

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

These don't seem to apply directly to a backup copy, since it is an exact copy of the original. I'd say a personal backup fails these two tests.

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

A backup passes here, since the market has already been compensated for the original, and it is upon this point that the current argument will turn.

If the courts agree that businesses are entitled to a sale each and every time a CD-ROM is used as opposed to purchased, then backups are not fair use.

Problem is that the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken almost directly on point here, so the entire argument is academic.

Despite the long asserted point that the government is of the people, by the people, and for the people it has been my personal observation and determination that it just ain't so.....except for the making of some laws that seem to be in that direction but you can't get them implemented unless you are rich or can get a whole lot of the "common" people involved (and that ain't easy).

I'll try not to get too "long winded" on this subject despite the points I could make to show this a valid statement. We see it all around us. Cameras on the highways with built in radar (got them here). Jobs lost due only to the technology that makes people obsolete, etc.

When you discuss this about the laws against copying CDs, etc. ask yourself this question. How many songs on records, CDs, etc. did you get for the price of said record, CD, that you really wanted? Were you not subsidizing the other so called artists whose songs were on that CD.......whether you wanted to or not?

Enough of that. I won't be around when it gets really bad but that doesn't mean I like seeing what's coming. I can only "feel" for those of you who will suffer from the lack of freedom that is being gradually taken from you in the name of "the better good" (but for whom?)

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I didn't do it......and if I did I'm not guilty!

I am fairly sure that we will see changes in the existing situation in the not too distant future. After all, this is one unique market where the manufacture has no liability whatsoever and generally bears no burden to issue even the slightest glimmer of a warranty on the product sold. "If you open it, you bought it" may be rapidly becoming an edict of the "olden days." I hope so.

Those were all very interesting responses; many thanks for writing, and also to Witchen for pointing out the existence of a Gameboomers guideline I hadn't spotted before.

It does say "Please don't post a request for a copy of a disc that seems to be missing from your game box." I might be mistaken, but haven't postings of a similar nature occured in the past? And haven't 'boomers responded with offers of help, for say, damaged discs?